Medicine Hat has the oldest housing profile of Alberta's major cities - about 61% of homes were built before 1991, more than anywhere else on our list. For decades the 'Gas City' had famously cheap natural gas, and a lot of that older stock was built without much thought for efficiency. Cheap gas is history; the leaky houses remain, which makes Medicine Hat one of Alberta's strongest spray foam retrofit markets.
How A Spray Foam Insulation Cost Medicine Hat Quote Is Built
Per board foot - area x thickness x foam type: - Closed-cell (R-6 to R-7, vapour barrier) suits the older Medicine Hat basements and rim joists that make up much of the work. - Attic R-38 is about 6 inches closed-cell or 11 inches open-cell. - Access - an open build in Southlands versus a retrofit in older Crescent Heights.
Why the Gas City is a retrofit market
With the most pre-1991 stock and gas no longer cheap, the payback on sealing an old Medicine Hat home is now real and fast - the leaks that didn't matter at 1990s gas prices matter a lot today.
Why no saving figure appears on the quote
Some contractors put a projected annual saving on the page. There is none on ours, and the reason matters more in Medicine Hat than anywhere. A saving figure is the product of a heat-loss model, an assumed occupancy, an assumed thermostat setting and an assumed energy rate, and on the cheapest gas in Canada three of those four assumptions push the number in the flattering direction. Nobody can honestly promise what a household will use next winter. What can be stated is what is being installed, where, to what thickness, and what it is designed to stop. Those are checkable. A forecast of your gas bill is not, and putting one on a quote makes the rest of the document harder to trust.
Where the payback argument does not work, and what does
It has to be said straight: on the cheapest energy in the country the payback arithmetic is the weakest case for this work, and anyone leaning on it in Medicine Hat is selling. A saving measured against a low gas rate takes a long time to repay anything. What the work is genuinely worth here is different and it is not financial in the same way. It is a house that holds its temperature through a cold snap, a basement that stops smelling damp, a room over the garage that becomes usable, and an assembly that is no longer putting water into a wall cavity. Those are the reasons to spend, and they are worth being explicit about rather than dressing up as a return.
What has to come out first
On a retrofit in this city the largest single variable is frequently not the foam at all, it is whatever is already in the building. Vinyl-faced blanket in a steel building sags, tears at the fasteners and holds moisture against the panel once the facing is broken, and it cannot be sprayed over. Batts stuffed against a cold surface are the same story. Removal, bagging and disposal is real labour before any material is applied, and it is where two quotes on the same building most often diverge -- one has priced the removal and the other has assumed somebody else will do it. Establishing what is up there before anything is quoted avoids that conversation happening later. A photograph of what is currently on the wall or the underside of the deck is usually enough to settle it before anyone comes out.
Spray Foam Insulation Cost Medicine Hat: Common Questions
Is foam dearer than batt? Per square foot at install, yes. The fair comparison is against the assembly you would need to match its air sealing, plus what it saves over a heating season.
Does a bigger job cost less per foot? Usually a little - setup spreads over more area. Access still dominates.
Can it be financed? Often within a larger project's financing. See warranty and financing.
Estimate board feet, then get an exact Medicine Hat quote. See cost drivers province-wide.